The Legend of Star

During one summer in college I worked at McDonalds in Estes Park, Colorado. It was a fascinating melting pot of people compared to the usual fast food shack. There were retirees who had moved to Colorado and wanted to keep working, a school teacher from Indiana who came to Estes Park every summer and paid for her vacation by working, a former nun, and students from all over the globe: England, France, Morocco, and especially Nepal.


My topic today however happens to be none of those people. It rests solely with a young woman named Star. I was told that Star's parents were former Hippies, though I never spoke with her enough to know if that was true. In fact, she didn't seem to work very often. But one night she did, and assumed her usual spot at the front working the register. The men were always put in the back, and the women usually at the front. All that I can say is that Star seemed like a nice enough girl, but she apparently had a reputation for living up to the "out there" stereotype associated with her name. She was never mocked in her presence or anything. No one treated her badly, or I would have felt very uncomfortable. She just had a rep.


The system operated in such a way that normal orders were treated like an assembly line - you made a dozen "regs", with a certain number cheesed. These were regular hamburgers and cheeseburgers. In the evening, things tended to slow way down, but for some reason we tended to get more "grill" orders, ones that had specials requests - no pickle, extra onion, that sort of thing. Grills would print out of a small printer, and the person who was going to make the grill would rip off the paper and take it with them. I think they would even give the slip back with the order.


This evening that Star was working, we had several grill orders come through in a row. We made them hurriedly, and then when we were done waited looking out into the lobby, chatting. Star came up to the window repeatedly peering back at us. Her face had a hunted look. She started drumming her fingers on the side of the heat lamp bay. She glanced back several times behind her to the line of customers. Beads of sweat began multiplying all over her forehead. Finally she could hold back no longer, and she wailed in exasperation "Where is my grill? I've been waiting forever!"


At that we were startled and began looking around frantically. After what seemed like minutes but was probably several seconds, we asked her what it was so that we could make it, since we couldn't find the slip. Her reply was stellar, no pun intended. "It was a cheeseburger no cheese."

I'll let you think about that one for a second.

As she was telling this in palpable frustration because we were taking so long to get her a relatively simple grill, she was leaning over and practically crushing the hamburgers that we under the heat lamp. While they weren't technically a special grill, I don't know what a cheeseburger no cheese is other than a hamburger.

That sort of cemented the legend of Star at the restaurant.